Summary
The poem consists of five stanzas in free verse, which means there is no set meter or rhyme. An omniscient speaker describes an "island man" in the third person.
The poem opens with the man waking up in the morning and hearing the sound of the ocean. He hears and imagines the waves crashing steadily. He imagines seabirds, fishermen pushing out to sea, and the sun rising from the east. This imagery comprises "his small emerald island," which he always returns to "groggily." He feels he is coming back to sands, but is interrupted by realizing the noise he has been hearing is actually the sound of traffic. Wheels surge and cars roar along a major motorway. This muffles the imagined scene. His crumpled pillow waves to him. With great effort, the island man gets himself up for "another London day."
Analysis
The poem follows the morning events of an “island man,” which is the title of the poem.
The phrase and title "Island Man" encapsulates the complex dual identity at the heart of poem. Grace Nichols is from Guyana, which is a South American country whose culture is strongly linked to the Caribbean, a region of island nations. In this way, the description “island man” easily describes someone from a Caribbean island nation. As the poem unfolds, it can be reasonably assumed that the man is originally from the Caribbean, as he is much more accustomed to waking up to the sound of the ocean than the sound of traffic. On the other hand, England—the man’s current country of residence—is an island nation as well. “Island Man” could be used to describe an English man. During the postwar era, many people from former British colonies immigrated to England. Those from the Caribbean region were known as the “Windrush generation,” named after a famous ship that brought many immigrants to England. By calling this man “Island Man,” Nichols declares him English. He is part of the era of immigrants that reshaped and redefined English identity. This is especially powerful when considering the racist and natalist rhetoric, policies, and even violence that immigrants faced in England.
He wakes up to “the sound of blue surf,” a noise that is “in his head.” This sound is enough to conjure a color (“blue”) and an image full of movement, of waves “breaking and wombing.” “Wombing” is an obscure verb conjugation of the noun “womb.” This suggests the movement of the sea is nourishing and warming to the man, like the relationship between womb and fetus. Moreover, it imbues the sea with a primal, biological sense of home.
The island man’s imagined scene continues into the second stanza, which underscores the oceanic imagery. He imagines different beings—“wild seabirds” and “fishermen pushing out to sea.” The seabirds are “wild,” unlike birds one would encounter in a cityscape. Action verbs (“pushing,” “breaking,” and “surfacing”) add movement, creating an immersive scene. The sun rises “defiantly,” suggesting there is some sort of revolutionary or oppositional power within the act. Specifying the sunrise as coming “from the east” could also allude to the split between East and West, as England is a primary Western power with a hegemonic Western culture.
The sunrise could also foreshadow the man’s brutal “awakening” in the next stanza—when he becomes fully conscious that the imagined island landscape is in his head and that he is actually listening to the sound of London morning traffic. But for now, he imagines “his small emerald island.” The attribution of color conjures a lush, green landscape which is jewel-like in its preciousness and beauty. This island is “his” and “he always comes back” to it, which suggests it is a personal and intimate scene. In the last line, there is a large gap separating “he always comes back” and “groggily groggily.” The latter phrase is out of place subject-wise—“groggily” describes the man’s state, but the rest of the stanza describes the island setting. The spacing between the words enacts formally the dissonance between the island scene and the man’s actual setting; in other words, metaphorically, there is also large gap between the Caribbean and London, in terms of both culture and geography. The feeling of grogginess, sleepiness, and dreaminess is mimicked by the repetition and interruption of the words “groggily groggily.” It suggests the island scene may only be accessed by the man in this dream state before he fully wakes.
The third stanza begins with a seeming continuation of the island scene. Repeating the same opening as the previous line, he “comes back to sands,” which conjures the beach in the island scene. However, the next line shifts the setting: “of a grey metallic soar.” When the two lines are read in continuation, the word “sands” seems to be substituting for sounds, which is an example of a pun. The next two lines support this reading: “surge of wheels” and “dull north circular roar” each are further examples of aural imagery. In this stanza, the man now understands that he is not hearing the sound of the ocean—instead, the noise is the sound of traffic.
In comparison to the island scene, which was filled with bright blues, sunshine, and green tones, the traffic scene is bleak. It is “grey metallic” and “dull,” colorless and lifeless. The rhythm of the poem is further interrupted again with “to surge of wheels” offset from the rest of the lines, which functions similarly to the previous break by signaling interruption and distance. The realization creates a fissure within the man’s mind, which is enacted in the poem through this spacing. “North circular roar” could be another pun, on London’s North Circular Road, off of which Nichols used to live when she first moved to England. The North Circular Road is a major throughway in the city that links East and West London.
The fourth stanza begins with another instance of repetition—“muffling muffling.” This doubles the “muffling” effect of the traffic, overshadowing the island scene. The “muffling” also overpowers the dream scene and replaces it with reality. “His crumpled pillow waves” recalls the movement of the ocean. It also could be a “wave” goodbye, a farewell from the island dreamscape to the island man as he exits the fantasy and enters reality. Resigned to his fate, the “island man heaves himself,” taking great effort to get out of bed.
“Another London day” is the only line in the fifth and final stanza of the poem. It resembles a refrain, which gives the entire poem a habitual feeling, as though this same scene happens every time the man wakes up. It also underscores the mundanity and monotony of the man’s life in London, as the days are indistinguishable from one another. In this way, the “morning” at the beginning of the poem could be meant as any morning and every morning within this man’s life in a new place.
